Intel’s Game On initiative has released a free two-new-mission pack for Ubisoft’s Far Cry 2. Each mission apparently covers a handful of objectives and adds maybe 3-6 hours to the game, depending on how omniscient or incompetent the AI decides to be during your particular play experience.
I actually started up Far Cry 2 again last night in hopes of seeing something I’d missed the first time. This is one of the games I was really expecting great things from, and it has so far failed to impress in nearly every conceivable interpretation of the word. To my mind, adding another three hours to the torture is not the best way to improve it.
The mysterious and elusive Open-World Shooter (Apricus mundus iaculorem) is perhaps the hardest game format to do well. Titles like Crackdown and Mercenaries 2 manage, but they’re hybrids at best: on consoles, in third person, and with plenty of minor problems like repetitiveness and weak plot threads. The clear winner so far is the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, including both Shadow of Chernobyl and the more recent Clear Sky. Even those games are far from perfect. Everyone looked to Far Cry 2 as a sort of proof-of-concept for the… ah… concept; Ubisoft is a big company with significant resources and a lot of talent: two things you need to produce anything as ambitious as an open-world shooter. Leads on this game, people like the uber-talented Clint Hocking and indomitable Patrick Redding, seemed very committed to making a game that would demonstrate the real potential of this gold mine of interactive opportunity.
So how was it screwed up so badly? The issues with Far Cry 2 are plain to see: even the game’s minutia is endlessly repetitive; the malaria thing is dumb; all tasks devolve to straight-up firefights; the territory is extremely difficult to navigate; the weapon purchase/upgrade system is immersion-shattering; the storyline takes hours to even begin; the enemy AI is inconsistent to the point of schizophrenia; random, game-slowing encounters occur every 40-90 seconds; the driving and repair mechanics are inspid; enemies respawn within seconds, often right in front of you. Maybe worst of all is the fact that you simply cannot play the game the way it was advertised in the many trailers: things like stealth are nearly impossible due to the inconsistency of AI and the persistence of vegetation that provides no cover but is impossible to see around.
Far Cry 2 has essentially two things going for it: a luscious, superbly-optimized graphics engine that Ubi can use for years to come, and gleefully destructive fire propagation physics that let you burn down half of Africa. And that’s it. Everything else promised by this game is as empty and hollow as the make-your-own storyline. Quests are always “go there and kill them, then come back;” a normal enough thing if it weren’t for the relative impossibility of effective overland travel. It takes hours to get where you’re going and hours to get back; vehicles are disposable and difficult to drive, and the failure to provide an onscreen compass to go with the it-works-better-in-theory-than-in-reality map system makes navigation ten times more irritating than it needs to be.
However beautiful the game world of Far Cry 2, its endless trees and copy-paste shacks make me yearn for the bleak handcraftedness of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.’s Exclusion Zone; the annoying weapon huts for Clear Sky’s cleverly implemented equipment repair and upgrade system, in which a gun was a friend to be cherished, the replacement of which was a big decision. For all that this game was supposed to uncover the future of the open-world shooter opportunity, Far Cry 2 is nothing but a throwback to its own unrelated precursor: a game that looked far better than it played, and ruined itself through careless design and failure to comprehend what the ideal experiential balance might have been.
What bothers me most is the 8.5s and 9s that Far Cry 2 is getting. I’ve always been an apologist for the gaming press even as I knew that journalists would, from time to time, hand out over-complimentary scores to undeserving games. This debacle is simply too much. I am not a newcomer to games, to shooters, to open worlds, or to open-world shooter games. I know what I’m talking about, and I saw in seconds how badly Far Cry 2 had stumbled. Days after I severely penalized Clear Sky for its own (not insignificant) shortcomings, I discovered the game we’d all held out hope for was a far, far worse specimen than even the gloomiest of naysayers had imagined it might be.
Far Cry 2 fails as a game, because it is frustrating and incompetent and not at all fun to play. It fails as a narrative or thematic object, because its narrative is meandering and it has no themes, aside from a Blood Diamond-esque “people killing people for loot is mean but alluring” undertone. The only place it succeeds is in its technology, and for me that’s not good enough. Tacking on a few more missions that’ll be just as obnoxious is nothing more than an expansion of disappointment. 
Oh hey, a mini rant!
This game should be required study for any aspiring game designer. How the developer managed to screw up every single feature of the game into a farce is instructive.
– Stop taking camera control away from the user for extended periods of time. I shouldn’t have to watch the engine repair cinematic and the malaria attack cinematic back to back while somebody is shooting at my ass doing real damage.
– If you’re going to put features into the game make them useful or helpful in some way. If it bothers you that the player could use mounted machine guns to kill enemies, don’t put them in the game at all. I don’t know why this bothers me so much. I think it has to do the the pointlessness of the checkpoints. If I could clear a checkpoint out with a mounted machine gun from the jeep maybe I wouldn’t feel so depressed everytime I come to one. At one stage I pulled up in a boat about 10 yards across a stream from a patrol site and unloaded fixed machine gun fire for at least twenty seconds into the camp. I hit neither of the two guys, but after jumping out I was able to kill them both with two shots from pistol. Yay.
– You’ve got to put something – some feature, anything – in the game that defines or measures progress. I took 3 missions that took me back to the same rail yard and the entire game world was not one iota different for all the effort. The only missions worth doing are the ones given by the weapons dealers because at least they unlock different weapons. The repopulating checkpoints is another example of this. If I’m clearing out checkpoints to get to a mission, maybe you could wait to respawn until after I go back the other way and not just until I duck my head around a tree (I kid you not)
– Don’t alienate buyers and destroy goodwill toward your products by using brand affinity to increase sales by relating a crappy product with an unrelated superior product. How does this game relate to Far Cry in any way? Does the game have the title it does for any reason other than to increase sales? This game could have been more accurately called Bioshock 2 since it has the same bubblegum looking blood.
– Finally and fatally, the savegame mechanism is the most fundamental subsystem of a game. It has to work absolutely and completely. The instant I start losing savegames because they’re corrupt and/or I can’t trust them is the instant the game is led to pasture and that’s where we’re at. I’d put it out of its misery… but I’m having malaria right now.
Thank you for these rants. I shall not be purchasing “Far Cry 2”. Ever.
Thank’s for the rant guys.
If a game suck’s … gang-ra%e it … that’s the only way we will at least get some unbiased view’s.
I dont believe the high metacritic scores anymore.
Stopped in my tracks when I read SP’s venom spewing about the high scores that FC2 was getting.
Happy for my decision.
Now is the PoP review on the cards SP?
Hey Amit,
Thanks for the trust in me. I could be wrong, of course… maybe this game is great and only Helmut and I think it blows. But we wouldn’t lead you astray.
I or someone at FFC will surely review the new PoP, but if it’s me it won’t be until after the holidays. I’ve got two other reviews I’m procrastinating on ahead of it.
This game seems to elicit a wide range of opinion. I’ve been reading a number of user reviews and a number of people think quite highly of it, including a few calls for GOTY.
The general drift I get from those players is that they enjoy the open landscape and the ability to approach the problems in any/all ways they see fit. The fire effects are great, and combat can be amusing.
There’s a sandbox-ish nature to it where you can play and have fun, just bring your own fun.
Well the point’s discussed by you and Helmut preety much seals it for me.
I’am done with “Great Graphic’s” and fancy addon special effect’s.
FarCry/FEAR/Crysis/CoD4/5 level of graphic’s is really all that I am looking for.
So effectively it’s all about the story and the professional way it’s handled ,for me at least, that will swing the deal.
Guess I am ok(just about) with multi-platform platformers but with FPS’s the PC exclusive crowd imo is really given the short end of the stick.
Thanks Steerpike and Helmut for those words. It is important we get an unbiased viewpoint from critics we trust. I have found that I can go out and buy a game you guys, but Steerpike for sure, and really enjoy it. I love the straight up talk with no nonsense.
By the way, why don’t you guys have a logo on the website? Doesn’t seem like you should be talking game graphics when you don’t have a logo yourselves. It’s a small point, but I’m just asking.
I found the game so pathetically bad, I decided to make a pledge website so that as soon as I reach 500 pledges I will mail ubisoft each and every pledge I receive . Farcry 2 is like a very beautiful but dumb girl..you can enjoy watching her for few minutes but as soon as you start talking to her you want to tear your hair out.
Everyone who hated the game please go to this website and sign the pledge
http://www.farcry2sux.com
Regards
Anando
Unfortunately I bought this game and was able look past some of the quirks… But then encountered a *game-stopping* bug around 78% where it will not give me any more missions.
I got the only available mission at one of the headquarters, guard lets me in, but door upstairs is closed… Ubisoft tech is no help…
Sort of glad I only paid 25 bucks for it, but what a huge disappointment…
well said, and thank you.
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I bought & played Far Cry 2 twice, and all the rants sum it up. Far Cry 2 is an entertaining shooter to play when you have a few minutes to kill and want to experiment with weapon load-outs. That’s the one thing I think they TRULY got correct. You don’t have “pistol”, “rifle”, and so on, you have a primary, secondary and support weapon. Since each category has different weapons, you can mix-n-match based on your play style. You can take a sniper rifle as a primary, a grenade launcher as secondary, and SAW as support. Or, you can take an Assault Rifle as primary, a pistol as secondary, and silenced dart sniper rifle as support. It’s very flexible and entertaining.
The rest of the game is just boring, predictable plot and glorified “errand boy” crap. If they had made the leap and actually turned this into the role-playing game it so desperately is trying to be, then it would have been good. They basically put together this very elaborate world, then iced over some plot, missions and other junk as after-thoughts, which is quite insulting. Hopefully some modders can give this game the heavy make-over it desperately needs. But I wouldn’t hold my breath. There’s so many games coming out these days, it’s hard for modders to commit time to one when something new is just around the corner.
Side note, I GAVE AWAY my copy of Far Cry 2, also. I just got so tired of it, it wasn’t worth the hassle any more.
I have been lurking for some time, many thanks to the Admin here too.